Writing - Everlasting Memories

[Janos Biro]

EDIT: Thanks to Andail criticism, I will try to do something different.

First, this would be a blurb for a short story, a back cover text, to introduce the story and main theme (I got this idea from this post, so that explains why I chose to write it like that):

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“Memory. Memory is everything...

What are photographs if not crystallized pieces of memory? And who would we be without those pieces to tell us who we are? Memory encompasses the whole mental and emotional universe inside of us. Our knowledge, our identity, our affection, our love… Memory is what makes us real. It's everywhere, at every second of our lives. It's our reality. Without memory, there would be just a blank emptiness; there would be nothing but death. Memory is life.

Memory is everything. And now memory is failing me…”

Mia is an artistic photographer whose life is turned upside down when she discovers that she can erase other people's memories with a simple thought. Now, she has to learn how to control this newfound ability in order to protect her family from those who want to use it for hideous purposes, while crossing paths with a dangerous psychopath that has a special ability of his own…

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That was my first draft, I was still conceiving the story, and it should become a readable short story in the end, if nothing goes wrong. But I realize now that I wrote too many poems, and when I try to write short stories I still get something like a mix of poetry and reality that makes the reader confuse. I actually like that, but other people seem to need to understand things in order to enjoy them... I like Kafka and Jorge L. Borges, so that explains a lot about my style.

So, instead of actually writing the story, I chose to simply describe it as it came to my mind. Maybe a more gifted writer will be interested in this, so consider it as it is.

I think about this story with a prelude titled "Trauma", 3 chapters, relating to the 3 stages of trauma recovering: "Safety", "Acknowledgement" and "Re-connection", and one conclusion, titled "Fully recovered".

The story would go more or less like this:

Prelude: Trauma

Starts with Mia trying to get her photography art project approved for founding by the campus art department. She talks a lot about the philosophy of memory and photography. During her interview, she discovers that she has the power to erase people's memory whenever she wants, and soon she figures that she has being doing that for a long time, unconsciously.

Chapter 1: Safety

Her father works at a big corporation. When visiting her father at work, a company man named Edgar unwittingly discovers her powers by listening to his recorder. First he is only curious, but then he realizes she is a mine of gold, and he will eventually threat her family to get her by his side. He sets up a radio com-link so his associate can remember him of anything while keeping a safe distance from the girl, in case she tries to erase his memory to escape, so he is somehow immune to her powers. He tries to force her to erase specific business memories from his competitors.

Meanwhile, one of Mia's boyfriends, Richard, the only one who could never forget her no matter how many times she erased his memory, is attacked by a mysterious man in the park. This man has a power similar to Mia's, but he does not simply erases memories, he drains all the good memories of a person for himself. He has become addicted to it. The victim, having nothing left from it's own life but the painful and distressing memories, often commits suicide a few days later.

Chapter 2: Acknowledgement

Richard's mother notices her son is different and calls Mia's mother, which is an old time friend, thinking that he is suffering from depression because of Mia's rejection. Mia believes her powers somehow messed up with his head, and tries to help him. He explains to her that the only thing he can remember about her is bad feelings, feelings that come when they were arguing and when she rejected him. Yet, he would rather have this than have nothing about her. I've planned Mia describing Richard as something like this: "I used to love him, but he is too irresponsible to be in a relationship. For instance, he only cares about making stupid point and click games".

Having such strong memories of love for Mia in his head, the "serial killer" who attacked Richard, a man who introduces himself simply as Ben, is now obsessed about Mia. He figures out she is special, and goes after her. He finds her in the very moment Edgar is confronting her, and "saves" her from Edgar for good. She then believes he is a good person, and tells him about her power. He tells her he is just like her, and then tell her that the only reason she can erase specific memories is because she can actually read the memories of someone, if she tries. He teaches her how to to use her power to steal someone else's memories, but she refrain from doing it. When she reads his memories and find out who he really is, it's too late for her to run.

Chapter 3: Re-connection

He ties her to a chair and start torturing her by telling that she was done it already many times, she has forgotten because she used her powers on herself. Using the memories he stole from Richard, he tries to convince her that she is actually his partner in crime, and that she enjoys to see people suffering. She resists, managing to call the police while erasing the "real-time" memory from his head, temporarily paralyzing him. But she can't hold it much longer, and he suspects that she used her powers on him, so he tries to use his power to make her "life" just miserable and empty enough so she would rather join him. But somehow, his powers don't work. He realizes she just erased the memory of how to use his powers. He then tries to attack her, but she starts to erase ALL of his memories.

When the police arrives, they see a man with a frighted expression. He doesn't responds to the police commands, so they threaten to shot him, but Mia unexpectedly jumps in front of the guns shouting "Don't shot. He is innocent. He is just a little boy". She tries to explain his mind is now of a 10 years old boy, and is not guilty of any crime, and should be taken to a place where they could take care of him.

Conclusion: Fully recovered

Mia thinks about all that happened and tries to figure out what to do next. She can set herself the goal of trying to restore, somehow, the memories that Ben stole from Richard, even though she would like him to completely forget her, she realizes the memories he has of her are an intrinsic part of his personality. In other words, he can't live without them. If this is enough as a proof of love, it is her choice. The other choice is to completely eliminate from her own mind any part related to her power, including the ability itself, in the same way she did with Ben, so she can be just an ordinary person. That's the end.

Hope someone eventually gets to read it.

[Andail]

Hi Janos!
I noticed that you started a duplicate thread about this over in gen-gen. I realize it can be disappointing not to get any feedback, but there's no way around this really - either people feel like giving you c&c or they don't, and the reasons may vary.

A large chunk of text can seem inaccessible and daunting for the common browser. Music and pictures are much easier to take part of and comment on. Having said that, your piece suffers from a few more issues that make it even less legible.

First, I don't know exactly what I'm going to read. Your post is simply hard to follow. First there's an introduction of yourself and your post, then there's a short semi-poetic text on memory. Then there's a very brief synopsis of your game. The comes the hidden section. I don't know what a "prelude" is in the context of game design - but I can guess that it's a text meant to set the tone or atmosphere of the game. I reckon it's not the manuscript itself, since, well, it doesn't read like one. But it does have even more explanatory text and character descriptions and stuff, so it doesn't read like a short story either.

I think it would be better if you presented this as a short story.

This brings us to the issue of formatting. On the Internet, you have to be much more generous when it comes to paragraphs. People need lots of space and places to pause. Second, your dialogues are written like lists. You don't want all that space after the dashes (in fact, there's never more than one space after a punctuation mark).

Typically, you indent three spaces, then dash, then one space:
   - Hello, said the doctor.
   - Hi there, I replied.

Furthermore, it's not great practice to have so many lines of dialogues stacked on each other, since that too will make it look like a list. You don't people to feel like they're reading lists. Try to break it up with more descriptions, or simply longer lines. And don't write the names within parentheses like that; either use normal verbum dicendi ("said Tolbert") or convert entirely to a movie script kind of format.

I think your text will have better success if written like a clean, well-formatted short story.
Good luck!

[Janos Biro]

Hi Andail,

I appreciate your attention. Sorry about the duplicate, it won't happen again.

Yes, I realize now that I pasted from Word and the formatting got messed up. And yes, it was supposed to be a short story, but it was really a fail. Thank you so very much! I will post again when I have something better to offer.

[Janos Biro]

Hi,

I completely reworked the first post so I could present the whole story in a readable way, without actually writing it. I hope that makes any sense.

[Andail]

Ok, I was under the incorrect assumption that this was a game plot, but now I understand it's really a summary of a novel

I like the idea, it's always interesting to play around with things like memory and consciousness. I especially like how one character has stolen someone else's very fond memories of an ex partner, and now in turn grows obsessed with that person as a result.

I would consider making this a shorter piece, maybe a novella, and narrow down the scope a bit. Instead of having two villains, various action sequences and parallel plot lines and whatnot, maybe you could let the protagonist be the one stealing others memories for kicks, and make him/her become obsessed with a character from within such a memory. So we're intimitely following a memory-stealing anti-hero, now falling irrationally in love. Intriguing, no?

I don't know how used you are to writing, but if you don't intend to make a full length action novel, scaling down and killing darlings is definitely the way to go here. It could turn out more philosophical and suggestive without all the extra characters and bad guys and heroes and plot twists etc.

[Janos Biro]

Wow, thank you so much, Andail! This is the first useful feedback I have in years. It's the first time I try to write directly in English. I wrote short fictions before, but they are all in Portuguese, and they were all very experimental. Thank you for your help.